Appeal No. 2001-1874
Application No. 09/072,758
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 6) and the Examiner’s Answer (Paper
No. 12) for a statement of the examiner’s position and to the Brief (Paper No. 11) and
the Reply Brief (Paper No. 13) for appellant’s position with respect to the claims which
stand rejected.
OPINION
Claim 14, Section 102 rejection over Aizawa
The examiner sets forth the rejection of claim 14 as being anticipated by Aizawa
on pages 5 and 6 of the Answer. Appellant’s position (Brief at 8-9) is that Aizawa fails
to disclose or suggest a continuous time processing capability to interpret an aspect of
an image. According to appellant, the “compression sensor” of Aizawa uses discrete
time processing to process detected image signals.
In response, the examiner reiterates (Answer at 15-17) that Aizawa’s disclosure
of using an analog circuit for the processing of each pixel is deemed to read on the
broadly claimed “continuous time processing to interpret an aspect of an image.”
Further, the examiner finds that Figures 5 and 7 of Aizawa disclose operational
amplifiers for processing analog signals -- or for “continuous time processing.” Further,
the examiner reasons that Aizawa’s teaching of the imaging sensor corresponding to a
retina -- biological vision -- requires that analog signals generated by the photodiode be
continuously processed to correctly detect motion or movement (i.e., an aspect) of an
image.
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